< Oblivious to Love

Oblivious to Love/Anime and Manga

This guy right here thought marriage was something to eat.

Examples of Oblivious to Love in Anime and Manga include:

  • The How clumsy you are, Miss Ueno. character Tanaka is so blind to obvious clues it's almost supernatural. In fact calling some of the stuff he misses "clues" is a little charitable to Tanaka. Oddly enough, Ueno find's Tanaka's obliviousness not only frustrating, but attractive.
  • Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club, whose obliviousness to other people's feelings towards her has led to many accidental "Just Friends" speeches, usually when the person with a crush on her was about to give a love confession. Made doubly amusing by the fact that these appear to be about the ONLY feelings the normally perceptive Haruhi is oblivious to.
    • Tamaki from the same anime takes this trope to its logical extreme. Although capable of being even more perceptive regarding the feelings of others than Haruhi is, he is oblivious to his own feelings towards Haruhi and thinks that his constant fawning over her can only mean that he thinks of her as a daughter.
  • Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger Z has absolutely no idea of when a girl is interested in him. Tetsuya Tsurugi from Great Mazinger is even worse, frustrating completely his Battle Couple Jun Hono, who keeps sending him signals as he keeps misunderstanding them.
  • Sakura of Cardcaptor Sakura, who somehow missed the very obvious affections of her lesbian best friend and constantly blushing rival until one of them explicitly said that they love her in that way at the end of the series.
    • Towards the beginning, her lesbian best friend also explicitly told her that she loved her; Sakura interpreted it as "I love you as a friend". Recognizing the rival's confession as romantic love was actually Character Development in that area.
      • It could also mean that Sakura is not aware of homosexuality at all.
        • Sakura guessed that (Yukito Loves Tohya) when Yukito said that he had somebody that he loves best.
          • Maybe she's just oblivious when the love's directed at her?
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion includes a traditional take on this trope with Shinji and Asuka. Asuka is in love with Shinji (according Word of God) and often she flirts with him (showing him her cleavage before asking him if he believes her breasts would grow if someone applied heat, looking for excuses to kiss him...). But since she constantly pushes everyone away because she is afraid of getting close to someone and getting hurt, and Shinji is a shy, oblivious kid and she pushes him away constantly, he doesn't get it because he can not believe she is interested in him. Unfortunately his obliviousness causes she thinks HE is not interested in her, so she gets angry and she keeps on pushing him away. The last scene of End of Evangelion hints maybe they may break the vicious cycle at last.
    • Rebuild of Evangelion: The two first films spend a good amount of time developing Rei's feelings towars Shinji, eventually getting to the point where she is in love with him. Only it's Rei who doesn't know she's in love. On the other side, Shinji is equally oblivious to the fact both Asuka and Rei are in love with him (although in the case of Rei it is more understandable, given Rei really doesn't show much by way of emotion).
  • The Megami Sound Stages of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha portray Nanoha as this in regards to Yuuno. For example, she misinterprets his worries and wishes to protect her for inferior battle tactics.
  • Kasumi seems totally unaware that Dr. Tofu is totally infatuated with her in Ranma ½. Although given that Dr. Tofu basically flips out when he so much as hears Kasumi's voice, has been doing this at least since she hit puberty, and neither Ranma nor Akane want to tell her why the good doctor does so, it's quite plausible that she sincerely doesn't know what the deal is.
    • And her sister Akane is even worse in relation to Ryoga.
  • The titular character of Naruto was somehow unable to comprehend the idea that Hyuuga Hinata's constant blushing, stammering, and fainting around him 'might' hint at her having a massive crush on him; rather, he simply chalked it up to her being "dark and weird". She literally had to scream it out loud at the top of her lungs.... Not that it seems to have changed the situation in any way whatsoever.
    • Sakura looked pretty surprised when Sai had to tell her that Naruto is in love with her. How she missed all the hints of Naruto loving her is also a huge mystery...
      • This is probably more of her not realizing that Naruto's feelings were that deep, and simply dismissing them as the childish, shallow crush it was at first.
    • Sasuke himself has always seemed oblivious to any girl's attention. The worst case was probably Karin, who all but threw herself at him. However, now she isn't interested anymore after he attempted to kill her.
      • With Sasuke, it's more that he's aware of said girls being attracted to him, but doesn't care.
    • Shikamaru seems totally oblivious that Shiho has a massive Hinata-level crush on him. Nor has he ever picked up on any of Temari's hints that she might want more than a friendship (though he's more of the denying type- he's actually too intimidated by her to speak out). I guess an over 200 I.Q. doesn't help you much with love.
  • Train from Black Cat, being the Chaste Hero he is, is very oblivious of a lot of character's feelings for him. Though he's especially this way with Creed, who is unbelievably outright about his scary obsessive love for him. In the manga, after all these years, Train is shown to still be incapable of understanding what possible reason Creed would have for killing Saya. There's even a scene where Creed tells Train that he would at least want to have Train by his side even as a dead body rather than have Saya have him. When other characters are creeped out by this, Train dismisses it by telling them to ignore him, and that Creed is simply being selfish and weird. Missing the point, no?
  • The titular Hayate the Combat Butler is very oblivious to pretty much all the characters' love for him, with the exception of Ayumu, who he seems to be treating normally after she confesses to him and Kotetsu, because he doesn't swing that way. Isumi is completely oblivious to Wataru's crush on her, while Wataru is oblivious on Saki's crush on him, but is slightly aware of Sonia's crush on him after she kisses him as part of the deal to save Saki from the kidnappers.
    • Unfortunately, Wataru has confessed that he loves Isumi, and then told her he was just joking. She's aware of it, but apparently not acting on it because she doesn't know he was serious. And the fact that she thinks he loves Nagi doesn't help. Later, after a Not What It Looks Like moment, Isumi now thinks that Sakuya likes him (very possible) and that he jumped Sakuya.
    • He's also unaware of Aika hinting that she likes him over an Indirect Kiss implication.
  • Negi Springfield of Mahou Sensei Negima is utterly oblivious that a number of his students are in love with him, only picking up on it when they just tell him to his face. Somewhat justified by the fact that he's too young to know what's going on, and several of his students (especially Chisame) point out just how blind he is to anything involving romance and note that this is going to lead to a lot of trouble in the future.
    • This directly leads to a rather nasty predicament involving Negi (magically aged up, pretending to be his own cousin) inadvertently leading on one of his students. Understandably, he freaks out when he finds out what's going on.
      • Later, someone pulls him aside, and explains just how many girls he's been inadvertently seducing, and it pushes him into a full-blown Heroic BSOD. And that was leaving several girls out.
    • There seems to be some dispute over whether Konoka is completely clueless over Setsuna's feelings for her, a downright sadistic tease, or making subtle overtures 'Set-chan' is too dense to realise are intentional.
      • By this point, the relationship has more or less inverted; Konoka obviously likes Setsuna in that way, but Setsuna is still stuck in "I'm just her bodyguard!" mode.
      • Also worth noting is that Negi isn't oblivious to Kono-Setsuna love; in fact it seems to be the only relationship he's noticed. As such, he may only be oblivious to love directed at him.
    • And in Ch. 269 we see that Negi apparently got it from his mother Arika, who for someone so intelligent was still unable to tell Nagi had feelings for her until he flat-out stated it to her.
  • Subverted in Magic Knight Rayearth where it seems that Umi is unaware of Ascot the Summoner's feelings for her. It becomes apparent that she knows, she'd just rather stay friends and not talk about it.
    • Only in the anime. In the manga, she totally fails to get the implication of Ascot's asking if she has a boyfriend on her own world (She acts like she thinks he's trying to set her up on a date with somebody).
    • And Umi isn't nearly as oblivious as manga Hikaru. Not only does Hikaru totally miss the fact that Fuu and Ferio like each other (Even after seeing Ferio kiss Fuu's hand, causing Fuu to blush furiously), her reaction to Eagle asking her to marry him is to say that she wants to spend the rest of her life with the ones she loves - and defines 'the ones she loves' as just about every named character in Cephiro that is still alive.
  • Otani from Lovely Complex. Not only is he initially completely oblivious to Koizumi being head over heels in love with him, even writing off an outright declaration of love from her as a joke, but he also doesn't realize that his childhood friend Mimi is also madly in love with him, which makes Koizumi express sympathy for her own romantic rival for having to deal with Otani's denseness ever since childhood.
    • What's even worse is that before Koizumi tells Otani she loves him, everyone else can see it before she says anything and then after she tells him how she feels repeatedly, all of their friends tell him point blank that she is in love with him and he still. Doesn't. Get it.
  • Himawari from ×××HOLiC appears very oblivious to Watanuki's obvious affection for her, turning it up when he gets more direct. This turns out to most likely be a Subversion: she chooses to pretend obliviousness in the hopes of protecting him from the curse of bad luck which afflicts people around her.
    • Watanuki, meanwhile, utterly fails to catch on to the fact that Doumeki keeps on hanging around because of him, assuming instead that Doumeki is his rival for Himawari's affection and/or just generally trying to annoy him.
  • Kyoko of Katekyo Hitman Reborn is painfully oblivious of Tsuna's crush on her, despite everyone else in the series knowing about it.
  • Kyon from Suzumiya Haruhi, despite being told several times by Koizumi (who openly and exasperatedly states that he can't believe Kyon still doesn't get it) about his importance to Haruhi, despite her hitting him with clues as subtle as a brick, despite him kissing her in closed space being the only thing that makes her want to return to the real world, still insists he has absolutely no idea why Haruhi gets so upset every time he acts too familiar with other girls. Partly on account that Kyon is an Unreliable Narrator, and partly because he's very good at putting walls up in his mind around things he doesn't want to think about.
    • An example is during the seventh volume when he wonders if the reason Haruhi is a bit downcast is problems in her love life. Immediately he kills this train of thought and spends several paragraphs convincing himself that's ridiculous/trying to laugh it off. Denial? Doesn't want to think about it? Oh yes.
      • In one scene Haruhi becomes overly emotional and nearly beats him up when she thinks he wrote Yuki a love letter. How much clearer can it get?
    • One thumpingly obvious example from the anime is when Haruhi disappears at lunchtime after being thanked by the band for helping them. Kyon wolfs down his lunch and then tells us he went for a walk to help digest it and definitely no other reason whatsoever, no way, not at all and certainly not to see if she's all right.
    • In one of the Melancholy episodes, Kyon suggests to Haruhi that she should take a nice guy to search the town for mysterious things, and that way she could call it a date and kill two birds with one stone. Which seems to be exactly what Haruhi was hoping to do with Kyon in the SOS Brigade's first mystery search...
      • This actually happens later on, since everyone else from the group was "preoccupied," leaving Haruhi and Kyon alone to search for mysteries.
    • In the first part of "Remote Island Syndrome," Kyon is awoken by Asahina taking photos of him sleeping:

Asahina: I just took a picture of you waking up. And I took a couple of you sleeping. You were sound asleep, weren't you?
Kyon: (thinking) Really? Why would Miss Asahina want to take pictures of me sleeping? (starts smiling) Maybe she wants to put a picture of me in a cute frame, keep it next to her bed and every night, just before she drifts off to sleep...
(Haruhi brusquely takes away the camera from Asahina, who's been reviewing the photos, and puts it in her own pocket.)
Haruhi: (interrupting Kyon's thoughts) What's with the goofy face? You might wanna stop 'cus you look like a moron! I've temporarily given Mikuru the responsibility of being the SOS Brigade's photographer! It's important to maintain a record of the Brigade's activities for future generations. But I decide what pictures to take!
Kyon: (out loud) Why would anyone care what I look like when I'm sleeping or when I'm waking up?

  • Allison and Lillia:
    • Wilhelm Schultz manages to remain completely unaware of his childhood friend Allison's feelings for him, in spite of his Hyper Awareness and Photographic Memory. Until she pins him down and forces him to kiss/marry her, anyway.
    • In the second half, Allison's daughter Lillia can also be like this, though it's exacerbated by the fact that the people around her help to keep it that way.
  • Hikari from Special A is utterly unable to separate "rival" and "lover" in her mind, and despite the most obvious hints from Kei (even a kiss and Kei attempting to get a date with her), she continues to be blindly ignorant of this. Yet everyone else around them seems to have caught on.
  • Hidamari Sketch has an expanded version, in that everyone tiptoes around Sae's quite obvious crush on Hiro—even when Sae goes into a barely concealed fit of jealousy when Hiro gets a love letter from a boy.
    • Let's say, Sae doesn't even understand what's being popular with boys...
    • Natsume's feelings for Sae also fit this trope. C'mon, does she have to jump her object of affection before anyone notices it?
  • Kaze no Stigma neatly subverts this. Kazuma almost certainly knows Ayano likes him and is willing to go on missions with her if paid by her father, who is trying to invoke Bodyguard Crush on him.
  • In the Girls Love Manga Girl Friends, Akko is completely oblivious to Mari's affections despite twice being kissed by her, and hearing what should have been a love declaration. Mari is likewise oblivious to Akko's affections although Mari hasn't seen as much evidence of those feelings.
    • Akko's actions could often be seen as flirtatious though (sexy bathing pics, anyone?), but Akko downplays them by claiming that "it is what girls do". Uh-huh...
  • In the Hen manga, popular Chizuru couldn't have been more obvious with her crush on Yamada, what with her blushing, sweating, stammering and even outright telling Yamada that she loves her. Yamada keeps treating Chizuru as a friend (albeit a weird one), even after Chizuru's very transparent attempt to steal a kiss from her—that is, until Chizuru practically explodes in a dramatic public love confession.
  • Sousuke is this for the majority of Full Metal Panic!. He's shown to be completely oblivious to Kaname's affections and jealousy over him, and only starts returning her feelings later (and even then, possibly because he was never in love before, he didn't even realize he was in love). And Tessa, who was incredibly aggressive in her pursuit of him? Pretty much all of her advances went right over his head (including an instance where he misunderstood an incredibly direct love confession as her telling him she loves alcohol). In the novels, he's also shown to be oblivious to Nami's feelings for him, despite the rest of Nami's crew constantly trying to get it into his head that she's in love with him and pair them up.
    • In the case of Tessa, Sousuke's obliviousness is turned Up to Eleven, to the point that he somehow manages to misconstrue Tessa's Anguished Declaration of Love in the OAV as her saying she loves alcohol. Considering that Tessa is his commanding officer and a romance between them would be inappropriate in the context of military regulations, it's entirely likely that Sousuke is either in deep, deep denial or is actively Obfuscating Obliviousness To Love.
    • In the novels, he discuss his feelings for Kaname with Kurz. Kurz tells him it's love, but Sousuke doesn't believe him as love is supposed to be happy and he is miserable.
  • In the World War Two Girls Love manga Kurogane Pukapuka Tai, Commander Kuki acts wholly obliviously to the wholly obvious attraction of her XO, Mamiya; even when she's told about it, she responds, "Don't be ridiculous! It is not possible between women!" She gets really flustered when women make advances on her, though, suggesting that the obliviousness may be denial rather than cluelessness...at least sometimes.
  • Pokémon: Ash, Ash, Ash: numerous characters of the day, multiple traveling companions, and who-knows-how-many Pokémon have had obvious feelings for him, and he's remained the Chaste Hero since you could count the number of episodes on your hands.
    • Fun part: this was a progressive "development". He actually showed feelings for a girl once (in episode nine). He also knew full-well that Butterfree wanted to court a mate in "Bye-Bye Butterfree", yet in the most recent season he's now clueless that a Cottonee wanted to do the same, thinking that "it just wants a best buddy."
    • Like Red is any better. Even by the end of the Emerald arc he remains blissfully unaware that Yellow and Misty see him as more than a "friend" at times (though the end of the GSC arc indicates that this is intentional obliviousness on his part, as dealing with romance makes him very uncomfortable). Ruby, on the other hand, is aware of Sapphire's feelings for him (and vice versa) but chooses to "forget" them... and it drives her up a wall.
    • Brock also falls into this trope at times, given most of the girls who DO fall for him are younger than him, aside from Pike Queen Lucy, who has a thing for Eyes Always Shut. Poor guy just can't win.
  • Naru in Love Hina falls into this with regards to her feelings for Keitaro. Later on, it is more a case of willful denial.
  • Yurika Misamaru in Martian Successor Nadesico not only refuses to accept that Akito Tenkawa is not head-over-heels in love with her, but does it so convincingly that Akito eventually does fall in love with her. Yurika, being a tactical genius, probably had it planned out that way from the very beginning.
    • Note her own obliviousness to Jun's feelings for her.
  • Kyohei and Sunako from The Wallflower absolutely refuse to even entertain the thought that they're in love with each other- Sunako going as far as to say 'Love is an illusion' and Kyohei using the excuse that he 'loves her food'- and this is after they've kissed twice, saved each other countless times and had the entire cast calling them out on their Unresolved Sexual Tension and feelings - so much that at this point of the manga everyone is convinced they are in love/together. EVERYONE. EXCEPT. THEIR STUPID SELVES.
  • Suetake from Doki Doki School Hours absolutely fails to recognize that his (male) classmate Kudo has a major crush on him. Of course, Suetake is quite dumb, but Kudo doesn't really keep it a secret, so everybody else knows.
  • Ami in Toradora! is very very transparent with how she feels about Ryuji, dropping incredibly obvious hints ("I would be your equal in a relationship") but since she never actually says anything outright, Ryuji is oblivious. So is the rest of the cast...
  • In Saki, Nodoka forms quite a crush on Saki, to the point that it has a negative influence on her Mahjong-playing abilities. Most everyone in the mahjong club seems to realize this—except for Saki herself.
  • Shunsuke from Yuria 100 Shiki has no clue that Yuria likes him despite how hard she tries to take care of him, not to mention her constant attempts to have sex with him.
  • Boa Hancock from One Piece is (extremely obviously) in love with main protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, yet is too shy to say it outright. He has no idea whatsoever.
    • She's now proposed to him. He flat out rejected her. "I'm not going to marry you, but thanks for the food" indeed. And no, we're not supposed to feel sorry for her; it's a funny scene cause she keeps trying with the same vigor.
    • Although interestingly enough, this also means that Luffy averts this trope. He's not oblivious to love (and he may not have ever been completely oblivious to Hancock's feelings - he didn't seem particularly surprised that Hancock proposed to him) - he's just not interested for now.
    • We also have Camie who furiously blushed and stammered when Shakky asked if she was Hatchan's lover. Hatchan himself barely reacts to the question. Or perhaps he does know but doesn't want to embarass/encourage her.
  • Bijou from Hamtaro has a crush on the title character, who thinks of her as being just another member of his family of friends, while not noticing Boss's crush on her; she attributes the attention he pays her to simple generosity.
  • In Ayashi no Ceres, Aya becomes flustered when Tooya kisses her, she falls asleep in his arms, and STILL his stoicism prevails. He does realize his feelings for her a couple of episodes later, but it takes longer—and is played straighter—in the manga.
  • In Kämpfer, Natsuru is probably one of the most oblivious people when it comes to love. Only loves a Shallow Love Interest and he still has three people going crazy for him. He STILL doesn't even know about it.
    • As of the last episode, he doesn't seem entirely oblivious, enough to choose them over getting them killed. But he still lusts after the girl who explicitly tried to kill them and mind controlled him for good measure.
  • In Simoun, Aer (Aaeru?) falls under this. At the start, she has no idea why anyone would want to kiss someone else if they weren't about to pilot a Simoun.
  • Nanako Yamamoto, a teacher at Hanamaru Kindergarten is described as having a world-record level ability for not noticing when men are interested in her. This actually seems to be a family trait, as her younger sister Mayumi exhibits the same trait when a man shows interest in her. Oddly enough, the Yamamoto sisters can each spot the other's respective suitors, but not their own.
  • Goku in Dragon Ball probably takes the cake. Chi-Chi develops a crush on him right after meeting him, and he fails to pick up on it, and when she asks if he'll marry her he thinks that marriage is food. As of Dragonball Z, however, it's clear he loves his wife, although he still has a funny way of showing it.
    • Subverted by his son Gohan. For a while, it looks like he's oblivious to Videl's crush on him, but it soon becames apparent that he also has feelings for her and is just scared to acknowledge them. This changes once his mystic training is through.
    • Played straight with Vegeta and Bulma who can both be oblivious. But usually at different times.
  • Jaden in the dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX with Alexis, because there are some added hints of her feelings for him in the dub that make him a complete dunce for not picking up on them, most notably when she tells him what a marriage is (because he didn't know), she says "it means friendship, at least for now big guy." Note in the original she just called him an idiot.
  • Italy from Axis Powers Hetalia doesn't understand why Germany objects so strongly to him flirting with girls. Even after Germany proposes to him with a ring. Granted, Germany was taking his cues from an advice book that turned out to have been tampered with by Prussia to give him bad instructions and Italy is The Ditz in general, but still...
    • Spain probably counts too, seeing how he doesn't seem to realize the full extent/implications of Romano's Tsundereness toward him or that Romano didn't give a wholly negative answer to his marriage proposal.
    • If Japan isn't portrayed as Happily Married to Greece in fan works that more-or-less pair them together, he'll be shown to be so deep in denial about their relationship or painfully oblivious to Greece's feelings for him that it's a wonder he can even breathe under the weight of his denial/obliviousness. Might actually have canon backing, seeing that not only does Japan promptly scream "It was All Just a Dream!" after he and Greece do the horizontal tango but he seems to get puzzled at some of Greece's actions toward him as if he can't comprehend why Greece would go out of his way to be so nice to him. Why, indeed...
  • One of the main foundations School Rumble is built upon. Tenma is too busy mooning over Karasuma to notice that Harima is mooning over her, and Harima is too busy mooning over Tenma to notice that Eri and Yakumo are mooning over him. (Not to mention that Karasuma is too busy mooning over curry to notice Tenma..... not that he cares anyway.) Hilarity and misunderstandings ensue, of course.
  • Kyoko from Skip Beat!, especially toward Ren. Justified because after Sho dumped her she gave up love and killed that area of her brain, vowing revenge.
  • Seiji in Midori Days. Dear God, Seiji. He ends up with three (four if you count his neighbor's daughter) women and one man lusting after him, and is only aware of the feeling of one woman because she says so all the time. Another goes through a painfully transparent I Have This Friend confession to him and he still doesn't get who she's talking about until she's halfway through. And the justification for this? Because at 17, he's never had a girlfriend, and so is incapable of picking up the incredibly obvious signals.
  • In Aoi Hana, Akira doesn't realize that her infinite kindness toward her childhood friend Fumi causes the latter's feelings for her to resurface. That is, until Fumi finally confesses to her.
  • Edward Elric towards Winry in Fullmetal Alchemist, at least in the manga. Though it's possible this is Selective Obliviousness on his part to protect her from the increasingly dangerous events that he constantly gets involved in. He finally gets over it at the end of the manga, complete with a Wacky Marriage Proposal to Winry.
  • Kousaka spends most of the first volume of Genshiken completely oblivious to the fact that Kasukabe has a big crush on him, even though Sasahara (and really, the reader until Kousaka mentions this) assumed she was his girlfriend just because of how she acted around him. It's especially humorous in that Kousaka actually likes her himself, but the idea that she felt the same way simply did not occur to him. Madarme's sarcastic suggestion that Kousaka just kiss her and get the whole Will They or Won't They? subplot over with was genuinely the first time he had any idea she'd actually go along with such a proposal.
  • Gankutsuou: Albert was completely oblivious of Franz's feelings for him. It helped that Franz kept his feelings a secret from everyone.
  • Yuuji from Shakugan no Shana is the resident Chick Magnet. He's also incredibly good at convincing himself that no girl could possibly find him that interesting and every time he gets suspicious about Shana and/or Kazumi being in love with him, he just shrugs it off as his imagination.
  • Moritaka of Bakuman? initially assumes his feelings for Miho are unrequited, and only realizes that this is not the case after he confesses to her and promises to marry her once they achieve their dreams. It's later revealed that she has been in love with him since the fourth grade, and this comes as a surprise to him.
  • Ken Washio of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, sometimes. His feelings towards Jun vary from episode to episode Depending on the Writer. Arguably he gets a little better about this in the sequels.
  • Detective Conan: Sometimes it seems like half the characters have this. Heiji is apparently utterly incapable of realizing his feelings for Kazuha or vice versa; even going so far as to believe the jealousy he felt when she flirted with a magician was just a leader's concern for his follower. Ran is even worse, despite unknowingly returning Shinichi's feelings. But Satou has them all beat; she has never once twigged to the fact that Takagi, Shiratori, and every other single man in her department find (or used to find) her attractive, often leading to humorous misunderstandings. (Especially when a mischievous Yumi shamelessly takes advantage of that cluelessness to prank the rest of the department.)
    • Sonoko's boyfriend Makoto also seems to have a hard time picking up on her "subtle" hints—in the Valentine's Day episode where she went to a resort with Kogoro's family to make a chocolate heart for (she told Makoto) "the person she cared for most," Makoto showed up to see who this person was and if he was a suitable companion for her. This turned out to be a good thing, as he arrived just in time to help KO two murderers who got the drop on everyone else. When he asked who it was and Sonoko pointed at him, he turned around to look behind him. Granted, Makoto is trully NOT good with people.
  • Miu from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has a bad case of this. Kenichi has it worse. He's so used to that idea that he's a loser that he can't even comprehend that girls will so much as look at him, let alone have feelings for him. So when anyone besides Miu acts fondly towards him, he seems to shrug it off as them just being nice to him.
  • Bleach: Orihime is in love with Ichigo. He doesn't know. However, instead of played straight this trope is subverted. She doesn't do anything to try and get him to notice her romantically. The author occasionally shows us how she views Ichigo (a well-mannered host or prince charming, basically) but only for comedy. Even her one, single soliloquy on the subject (to an unconscious Ichigo) was simply to express gratitude and say goodbye. Even that showed no expectation of having anything in return from him on a romantic level. It probably has something to do with Word of God revealing he wasn't interested in writing a romance story. As a result, even the only character confirmed to have romantic feelings for someone appears to have no interest in actually getting said object of affection to notice and do something about it.
  • Ennis from Baccano!. Firo reports that she didn't quite catch on for fifty years.
  • Kumiko from Gokusen is incredibly clueless about Shin's feelings for her, even as his extremely unsubtle friends try to help him out. Even the teachers were aware of Shin's crush on her before she did.
    • In the Live Action Adaptation, Kumiko is completely oblivious to the male gym teachers crush on her through all three series. Too distracted by the guy of the season to notice.
  • Fuyuki Hinata of Keroro Gunso is totally oblivious to the crush Momoka Nishizawa has on him. Much to her endless frustration.
  • Kamijou Touma towards his gigantic harem, which he doesn't really notice, most blatantly with his roommate Index and his "rival" Misaka Mikoto. Either that, or he does know and tries to get by by pretending not to know, which is understandable considering the repercussions there may be if he were to reciprocate any feelings to any single one of them.
  • Ichika Orimura himself can give almost everyone here a run for their money.
  • Hilshire from Gunslinger Girl is this, starting with Maria Machiavelli's hints that they should work out their relationship and going all the way up to obliviously ruining the atmosphere Triela made with a candlelit dinner. Considering her cyborg nature, and how much of that affection may be conditioning, which she admits she has difficulty telling apart (until a more recent chapter, she gets a Love Epiphany and indeed realises that her feelings for Hilshire are genuine), it's understandable. However, Hilshire still remains oblivious even to the increased affection she shows him after said epiphany, although the fact he was asleep (due to the painkiller from hastily administered field medicine) when it came to her and when she kissed him, it's also somewhat understandable.
    • Not to mention the fact that Triela is underage. One suspects that Hilshire ignoring her overtures is deliberate.
  • Madoka Magica: Kamijou Kyousuke's failure to notice that Sayaka even likes him is impressive, given how much she dotes on him. Maybe it runs in the family?
  • Guts from Berserk never really bothered to realize that Casca wanted him to stay with the Hawks - not solely because Griffith was so dependent on Guts as chief member of the Hawks - because she was falling in love with him. And the fact that he was so convinced that she was in love with Griffith even though he himself had a growing attraction to Casca at the time but refused to acknowledge their relationship as anything other than "friends" and wished the both of them happiness after he was gone didn't help.
    • To be fair, Casca was a little oblivious to her own feelings toward Guts until she finally reached her Love Epiphany when he left.
  • Jiyu from Jubei-Chan: Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch.
  • Kou Seiya of Sailor Moon constantly flirts with the protagonist from the moment they first meet. At first she's just playing, but she becomes more serious after Usagi confesses that her boyfriend in America hasn't been responding to any of her letters since he was dead, but she doesn't know it. Seiya concludes that Usagi's boyfriend has dumped her; Usagi convinces herself that he's just working hard, and thus remains oblivious to Seiya's intentions.
  • Van of Gun X Sword is blithely unaware of the romantic feelings at least two of the three women in his harem have for him. (He MIGHT have some idea about the third, but it's hard to tell.)
  • In Magical X Miracle, while Merleawe has at least some inkling of the crushes Vaith and Fern have on her, others are a bit more blind. For example, Yue doesn't get it. He didn't get it with the flirting. He didn't get it with the subtle attempt at a love confession, forcing Lenolora to lay it out for him, word by word, very explicitly, in front of all his peers and higher-ups. And then he turned seventeen shades of pink and was temporarily unable to form a coherent sentence. Of course, being a Kuudere probably doesn't help with the ability to recognize love.
  • The main character in Tokyo Ravens (like Nurarihyon no Mago but with a good omyoji family vs. evil spirits) is doubly oblivious. He doesn't know why his best female friend is so concerned about him and his future and when his seemingly cold and snobby cousin visits him with a Luminescent Blush he asks if she has a fever. When both these girls get angry that a Dark Magical Girl has been flirting with him he gets very confused. At least his friend tearfully made a love confession while his cousin, furious that he said the DMG was cute in the middle of warning her to leave for her own safety, decides to stay at the one place the DMG said she was going to attack.
  • In Tiger and Bunny, Kotetsu is completely oblivious to Karina's increasingly obvious crush on him. Not even Karina's giddy declaration that she'll cherish a towel he gave her forever seems to have clued him in. Word of God says he's always this oblivious when it comes to women's advances.

Kotetsu: ... What's up with her?

  • There are notably a few in Nagasarete Airantou, but Ikuto stands above the rest
  • Saya from Blood C is a rare female example, and one of the most extreme; at least two guys (Itsuki and Tokizane) are blatantly interested in her, but she manages to remain completely clueless. Subverted: Tokizane was faking it. Itsuki plays it straighter, though he fell for her later... and then he died.
  • Subverted in Mawaru Penguindrum, since Tabuki wasn't that oblivious in the end. He was in love with Momoka, a girl who died many years ago.
  • Karakuridouji Ultimo: Yamato to Rune up to chapter 10.
  • Keiichi of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni was completely unaware of Mion's true personality, let alone her huge crush on him. His ignorance is revealed to be the trigger (he gives a doll he won to Rena, instead of Mion) for the bloodiest murders in the series.
  • In Iris Zero, Toru is oblivious to Sasamori's growing feelings for him. Though in chapter 27, Asahi calls Toru out on pretending to not notice Sasamori's feelings. Toru is only pretending to be oblivious because he is afraid of upsetting the uneasy balance in his newfound circle of friends.
  • Debatable example with Lelouch in Code Geass. Everyone can see Shirley's got a massive crush on him, but it is unclear whether he ignores it out of genuine ignorance or if he has other reasons.
    • He didn't seem shocked when she (eventually) plucked up the courage to ask him on a date, nor by the fact that she kissed him, and when C.C directly brought up the subject of their relationship he was unsure of how he felt, but didn't react with the surprise or denial one might expect for this trope. Add to this the fact that he's normally very good at understanding and predicting other people, and it seems likely that he was aware of how Shirley felt, and chose to stay Just Friends due to his own ambiguous love for his sister, and later because he was preoccupied with running a terrorist/freedom fighter network.
  • Zigzagged by Kanie Seiya in Amagi Brilliant Park, when Sento Isuzu is trying to conceal her recent realization that she has feelings for him ... and she's been dosed with a magical "Heartsleeve Fruit" that makes her inclined to babble detailed truthful remarks. Seiya does grasp what she's fighting not to say, and he notes privately that the thought makes his heart beat faster. Reciprocating would cause other problems, though, so he does his best to pretend that he hasn't realized.


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